


you feel like rain

by snowandfire



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Canonical Child Abuse, Childhood Friends to Lovers, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Light Angst, Handholding, Mai (Avatar)-Centric, fruit tarts as a love language, the author is emo for this pairing, they're lunch buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26673313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowandfire/pseuds/snowandfire
Summary: [mai and zuko are neighbors and friends, but one night in the rain changes everything]or: soft teenage maiko
Relationships: Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 207





	you feel like rain

Mai has neat handwriting. Perfect small strokes. Deliberate. Not a line out of place. People praise her for it. She has glasses, with gold-rimmed frames. She wears her mother’s old watch on her left wrist. Always the same. Always _neutral._

Everyday she wears the same black skirt (sometimes navy) and a clean, ironed white shirt; it’s the school’s uniform, and other girls choose to add to it with ties and barrettes and coats. Doing everything they can to stand out. She doesn’t. (But she wishes that she could). 

The window to her bedroom faces East. When she’s studying late at night she can hear the fights that go on in the neighbor’s house, Zuko’s house. It’s always loud and Mai can hear every word. Sometimes it’s audible to the whole street. Horrible things. _Useless. Worthless._ Always directed at Zuko. That too is always the same. 

In the mornings, they stand together sometimes, and wait for the train to take them into school. This year he’s a little taller than her, for the first time. And she sees him differently. Feels a bit weird about being near him. Like he’s magnetic or something. He smells different. There’s a weird _boy_ smell about him. Some feral part of her wants to abandon all logic and just bury her face in his shirt and be _close_. Just to see what it would feel like. 

But she knows that she can’t. She can only be a friend. _If that._ And worry. 

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it…” she asks softly, reaching out to squeeze his hand. It’s more than she can usually bring herself to say. She’s more worried now than she’s ever been. Worried that something will happen that Zuko’s dad can’t take back. She has a feeling something’s off, really off. She doesn’t want to be right. 

“It’s fine.” He shrugs off her hold, and strides off in a huff, “I’m fine.” 

It happens the night after Mai gets her seventh standard examination results back. They’re perfect. She did perfect. She’s not sure, but she suspects that Zuko didn’t. She’s by her window, heart racing, unable to go to sleep. There’s shouting again. She wishes she could tell her parents to intervene. Call someone, do something. But she knows that they wouldn’t. The Ryu’s are the most powerful family in the entire city. What they do is their own business. 

Mai runs to her parents’ bedroom at the other side of the house when Zuko screams. She cries into her mother’s arms like a baby all while her parents say things like ‘shut up’ and ‘keep quiet.’ ‘Keep a good face.’ She can’t. She can’t keep a ‘good face’. They give Mai strong sleep medication and tell her not to talk about what she hears. Mai stops talking entirely. To anyone except him. 

It takes five weeks for him to come back to school. By then his eye is bandaged and Mai can tell he wants nothing more than to be left alone by people who want to gawk. He doesn’t want to talk about it. So with him, she does the talking. 

It’s a bit weird, taking her lunch out to the courtyard in the middle of the school, sitting next to him on the bench. Just talking _at_ him. She feels a bit like Ty Lee. But he’s all hard and cold now, even more than he was before. She has to try. Besides, she doesn’t really have anyone else to talk to who would keep her secrets. 

“I hate history class,” she says. “It’s so boring and I can tell they’re not telling us the truth. I can just tell.” 

He doesn’t really say much, just nods in her general direction, which is an indication that she may keep on speaking. She does a lot of complaining and he doesn’t seem to mind, which is a definite plus. Actually, he seems to like complaining quite a bit. 

“I don’t like the way my parents treat me,” she tells him one day. That’s the first time he has more of a reaction. 

He looks at her and says, “Yeah.” He doesn’t offer any comfort. He just holds her gaze. He nods. But that helps. Just being able to say it. 

A couple people point at them, call them ‘gloomy boy and gloomy girl.’ Some people whisper about how they’re ‘together’ now. Mai doesn’t really care. He’s her first genuine friend (other than Ty Lee). She’s sure he has absolutely nothing to gain from listening to her complain all the time. And around him she can be herself. Not the constrained, neutral version of herself that she _has_ to be. 

She likes being around him, and she usually hates everything. 

“I like fruit tarts,” she confesses to him randomly. She doesn’t even think he’ll think much of it. 

But the next day he’s late to meet-up at their usual lunch spot, and he has one in his hand. His cheeks are all red and he hands it to her. They don’t talk about it. 

She starts mentioning other foods. Trying to see how long her luck will hold. 

“I like dumplings.” 

He brings dumplings. 

“Sticky rice cakes are pretty nice.”

He brings sticky rice cakes.

“I like sushi.” 

Sushi rolls, packed nice and neat. 

“But I like fruit tarts the most.” 

He brings them again. This time she shares it with him. Breaks it in half, and has the daring to feed him a bite. He feeds her a bite too. It’s the nicest thing she’s ever tasted. 

He talks a little more now that they’ve shared a fruit tart. But not much more. He asks more questions about the things that she says. But that’s a start. 

She tells him that when she grows up she wants to be a pilot. Not as part of the military. But just by herself. She wants to fly far, far away from here. She tries to say it like it’s not a big deal. Because the first time she had told her parents that, they had said to forget something so childish and fanciful. She’s told teachers that and they’ve said a girl like her could amount to much more than a simple pilot. She hasn’t dared tell any friends. 

But he considers it very seriously. “Yeah, I think you could.”

She’s never been happier. 

The summer holidays after that are hard. Her family takes them to the coast. She doesn’t spend her lunches with Zuko any more. All she can think of is getting back to school. Her parents praise her for being such a studious child. Most kids love vacation and hate school. 

But when they get back he avoids her. This is infuriating. As far as she can tell, nothing has changed. Sure, now the bandages are off and she can see that scar clearly, it’s red and ugly. But that’s no reason why things should be different. Not to her. 

She doesn’t know how to say this to him. So she doesn’t. She stops at the stand by the school and she buys a fruit tart. She waits for lunch and she takes it to him. He understands, and follows her to their usual spot. 

“I didn’t want to scare you, the first day, I think one of the maids fainted. I...didn’t think you’d want to be with me.” 

“Don’t think something that stupid again.” 

“Okay.” He breaks the fruit tart in half, and he feeds her a bite. 

She takes the bite, chews and swallows. Her heart’s thudding in her chest. She doesn’t want to be normal, or neutral about this. She wants what she wants. And she’s pretty sure, from the way he’s looking at her. That he wants it too. 

It only takes a second to lean in and kiss him on the cheek. “Summer was awful.” 

“Mine too.” 

It takes him a week to start flirting. 

“I, uh, like your eyes,” he says. They’re playing hookie from history, and just walking along the school grounds. 

“They’re pretty typical.” 

“Maybe, but I--” 

“I get what you were trying to say.” 

“Oh. Okay. Good. Great.” 

“I like your eyes too,” she muses, kicking some stones along as they walk. 

“You can’t mean that,” he scoffs. 

“I don’t say anything I don’t mean,” she replies, a little too harshly. _I don’t say anything I don’t mean. Not to you._

“Do you like me?” he asks suddenly. 

“Of course I do.” 

Three weeks later she tells him about her mom. Lately they’ve taken to finding excuses to meet up at the train station. It’s a busy place where people are in a hurry. Her mom believes that she’s studying with a friend. She doesn’t know _what_ Zuko’s dad believes. But she’s just glad they have more time. It’s the only time in her days when she can breathe. She hates feeling like she’s gasping for air. 

“She came to the city when she was eighteen,” Mai explains. “She had me when she was nineteen. They told her what to do and what to say. I don’t think she had much of a choice either. You know, in everything.”

“That still doesn’t make it fair,” Zuko says, “the way she treats you.” 

“No, it doesn’t.” 

“Maybe when you’re a pilot, you can take her up to the sky too. Show her what she’s been missing.” 

“I’d like that,” Mai says, taking his hand, “but I’d rather take you.” 

“I don’t think that’ll be possible.”

“Oh?” She worries, maybe she misread things. Maybe his dad won’t let him. Maybe he’s just not interested in thoughts like that. Thoughts about _them._

“It’s because I’m afraid of heights,” he says, but he’s smiling, so she knows this is a joke. And a bad one too. Not even one that particularly makes sense.

“You can close your eyes,” she says. “I’ll be flying it. Not you. I’ll tell you when you can open them.” 

“Okay,” he nods. “That’s fair. I trust you.” 

It starts raining as they leave the train station. They’re still holding hands and they get drenched on the walk home. She sees him cringe in pain when the water runs down over his scar. She suspects that maybe it’s the rain. It’s hurting him. She pulls them under an awning and her hand goes up to touch it. He doesn’t brush it away. 

He feels warm under her touch. He looks at her like he really sees her. Like out of everything there is. Everyone there is. She stands out. It’s refreshing, being with him, she thinks as she caresses his cheek. He feels like rain. 

There are water droplets on her glasses. Zuko takes them off. Wipes them dry with the edge of his own shirt, and puts them back on her face. He’s so delicate in the way that he touches her, the way that he gently places the glasses back on her nose. 

“Why’d you do that?” she wonders out loud. She brings up her other hand too, to hold his face. 

“I wanted to.” 

“It’s been a long time,” she admits, “since someone’s asked me what _I_ want.” 

“I’m asking,” he says, nodding hard, so earnest it makes Mai want to cry, “I’ll get it for you. If I can.” 

Mai kisses him. He’s taken by surprise, but he takes it in stride. She feels him smiling against her lips. His hair is wet but she doesn’t mind getting her hands in it. Wet clothes against wet clothes. In a few minutes it’ll be past her curfew. It’s not her first kiss and it might not be his either. But it feels sweet. It _feels_ like a first. She kisses him and hopes he can’t tell the rainwater from her tears. The way he’s holding her she wishes he would never let go. 

“You’re what I want.” 

He laughs, and he kisses her forehead. Both her cheeks and finally kisses her again on the lips. She’s never seen him this happy. 

“Then that’s what you’ll get.” 

**Author's Note:**

> catch me at @bluberry-spicehead or @itsmaikotime  
> thanks as always to @pianjeong for that good beta energy


End file.
